Monday, February 8, 2016

In my last post I wrote about ukemi 受身, or receiving techniques. Proficiency in ukemi is important in arts like judo and aikido where practitioners are thrown around the room and have to be able to land safely. How you receive attacks is critical in arts like karate and kenjutsu as well.

How you receive techniques is fundamental. When we start we are all a least a little stiff and scared. Whether it’s fear of falling and hurting ourselves, or the fear of getting hit with a stick or a fist, we react by tensing up. Relaxing when you know someone is going to pick you up over their head and throw you at the floor is tough.

The mental states of mushin and fudoshin are essential for doing good budo. I’ve written about the mental states, but these are reflected in the body and impact how we deal with attacks. If you’re afraid of getting hurt, if your mind is stuck on the possibility of pain, you’re not going to be able to respond properly. You’re going to be stiff and worried. Your state of mind translates very directly to your body.

Basic ukemi, whether they be breakfalls, blocks, or other methods of receiving attacks, have to be practiced until they are smooth and until we are so sure of them that we can relax when our training partner attacks and just focus on our partner. Our bodies have to have to be emptied of anticipation in the same way our minds are in mushin. Only then can we really relax into whatever needs to happen to receive a throw or other attack.

If you wonder about the use of the word “relax” in the last sentence, I use it because you can’t stiffen up for an attack. The Tao Te Ching nailed this one more than 2,500 years ago:

The living are soft and yielding;

the dead are rigid and stiff.

Living plants are flexible and tender;

the dead are brittle and dry.

Those who are stiff and rigid

are the disciple of death.

Those who are soft and yielding

are the disciples of life.

The rigid and stiff will be broken.

The soft and yielding will overcome.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 76

http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/lao-tzu/64466

If you have any doubts, just try taking breakfall ukemi when you are tense and stiff. It hurts, and you’re quite likely to break something. Relax and be soft, yield to the energy instead of trying to resist it. I’ve seen people in their 70s and 80s safely take big falls in judo and aikido because they know how to be soft and pliable instead of stiff and brittle.

Once you get comfortable with the fundamentals of receiving attacks, and learn to relax into them, you’re ready to begin working on the fun stuff. When you can take falls casually, easily and without thinking about them, then you can start working on interacting with the attackers energy.

In aikido, uke (the person receiving the technique) and tori (the person doing the technique) are always clearly defined. In judo randori on the other hand, one of the things determined through the randori is who is uke and who is tori. Both people are working to destabilize and throw their partner. This is when the fun begins. There is nothing that states that because someone begins to throw you that you have to simply accept being thrown. I’m rather fond of kaeshiwaza, or counters.

The current rule in competitive judo is that for a counterattack to score a point, the initial attack must be clearly stopped before the counterattack occurs. Frankly, this is lousy judo. I cannot imagine a good reason why anyone would want to stop all that lovely attacking energy and then start from scratch. To me, the best counters flow seamlessly from the attack to the counter.

Nice kata of counters. Shows the attack, then the counter slowly, then at speed.

Take the energy that is attacking you and flow with it. When you are confident you can handle fully receiving the attack, then you can start playing with it. Every attack has a counter. Some have several. I’m fond of a version of tani otoshi against big hip throws and yoko guruma is often available when receiving kote gaeshi and other popular aikido techniques. The key is flowing with the attack and transforming tori into uke during their attack.

Tani otoshi is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s little more than applied sitting down yet is wonderfully effective against big hip throws. As tori attacks you drop your hips under their attack off-balancing them to the rear. At that moment, they cease to be tori and become uke. As you continue dropping your weight until you are on the floor you hold uke to you and turn a bit to make sure they land on the floor and not on you (OK, there might be more to it, but that’s what a good one looks like).

Not very fluid, but you get the idea.

Counters, kaeshiwaza, are advanced ukemi skills. Being able to do counters is a critical skill for anyone teaching budo. Students are stubborn. They will keep doing things wrong, giving away their balance and energy while attacking, unless there are consequences for doing so. Counters are the consequence. If tori sets up the technique properly then it’s not possible for me to counterattack. If tori leaves any sort of opening though, I’ll take it.

When a student gets to a level where their ukemi can handle an unexpected throw, they should start getting countered occasionally when they leave an opening. This avoids all arguments about whether or not an opening was real. If I attack, and I end up on my back, I know I left a juicy opening for someone. There’s no need to counter every time someone makes a mistake during practice. Just the knowledge that counters can happen tends to make people stand a little better and pay attention to not bending over at the end of a technique.

Counters are also fun on the folks who like to replace good kuzushi and technique with raw strength. It’s a concrete way to demonstrate the weaknesses of raw strength. Take all that raw strength that’s making you twist or bend and go with it. If someone is pushing or pulling that much, a counter of some sort will be available.

Yoko wakare is a lovely, flowing counter.

Attacks have weaknesses. If those are never demonstrated students won’t know where they are. Teaching people counters and how to find them does something else. It teaches them to see the openings in their own techniques, which is the first step in closing them.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

A while back I wrote that you shouldnever practice anything more than once. There is a corollary to this, that you should never do more than one thing at a time. We live in world that bombards us with stimuli and urges us to try to do everything, and do it all at the same time. Society seems to frown on being quiet and focused. Multitasking is praised and held up as some kind of ideal form of functioning, when the reality is that fardifferent. We are all likely to fall victim to it though. It’s just too easy in modern society, when we can be talking on the phone, working on the computer, eating lunch and texting with our kids all that same time, and I’m as guilty of falling into this trap as anyone is.

The truth is though, we’re at our best when we do one thing at a time. I was reminded of this while reading a very nice piece about giving things 100%. One of the great things we work on in the dojo is just doing one thing at a time. Trust me on this, if you try to do Judo randori and even think about anything else at the same time, you will quickly find yourself flying through the air and the floor leaping up to smack you between the shoulder blades. You just can’t do more than one important thing at a time.

We work on developing this focus and our abilities every time we’re in the dojo, and hopefully we are applying this and developing it even more when we are not in the dojo. In the dojo we are trying to learn very complex skills that require coordinating our entire bodies and getting all the parts working together. The first part we have to train is our mind. We have to learn to just be in the dojo doing the technique or kata that we are practicing. We can’t be making a shopping list or planning dinner or figuring out tomorrow’s work schedule or deciding what to watch on TV tonight. We have to in the dojo practicing.

We want to let go of all the other things we could be doing, and do this one thing we have chosen to be doing. Initially, the one thing we are focusing on my be how we walk, or how we hold our head or how we swing the sword. Over time, with focus (!) we can integrate these things so holding our head in the appropriate position and how we walk become one thing. Then we get better at swinging the sword so we are holding our head and bodies in good posture while walking and swinging the sword in one action that we are focusing on. Or it is drawing our partner slightly off her base as we interpose our foot between her foot and its next targeted step while maintaining our own balance, posture and proper movement.

No matter how far I progress, if I try to do more than one thing at a time, even if it is just thinking about something other than my physical activity, my physical activity suffers. In the dojo, this means I get thrown during Judo or hit with a stick during Jodo or whacked with a sword during kenjutsu. I’m better at focusing and just doing one thing than I used to be, but I still have a long way to go until I’m satisfied.

The surprising thing is that the more we work on focusing on just doing one thing, the better we get at everything. With practice our ability to focus and concentrate improves, and it gets easier to let distractions float by without giving them our attention. As we get better at this, we get better at mastering whatever it is that we are actually doing. The time in the dojo is concentrated focusing time, whether we are doing judo or kenjutsu or iaido or whatever. As we get better at focusing that plugs into better training results. We get closer to achieving the goal of flow, or mushin, where we are just there, doing what we are doing without overthinking it and without being bothered by outside thoughts.

I really recommend “The Art Of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin. He does a phenomenal job of describing the real work that goes into getting to a state of mushin or flow. In addition, he is a great story teller who is just plain enjoyable to read. Getting to a state of flow or mushin is not an easy process, but he does a nice job of showing how to get there. If we try to do more than one thing at a time though, it’s an unattainable goal. Multitasking just takes us down a road that leads further and further from the goal.

Don’t be lured into trying to multitask. We know it’s a siren song that will wreck learning in the dojo and our ability to get things done outside the dojo. Multitasking doesn’t work. Just do one thing at a time, and then you can do it well.